“This is something that I cannot get over, that a whole line could be written by half a man, that a work could be built on the quicksand of a character”

“There is an electric fire in human nature tending to purify - so that among these human creatures there is continually some birth of new heroism. The pity is that we must wonder at it, as we should at finding a pearl in rubbish”

“I will give you a definition of a proud man: he is a man who has neither vanity nor wisdom, one filled with hatreds cannot be vain, neither can he be wise”

“The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the mature imagination of a man is healthy; but there is a space of life between, in which the soul is in a ferment, the character undecided, the way of life uncertain, the ambition thick-sighted: thence proceeds mawkishness”

“The immorality of men triumphs over the amorality of women”

“Artists have a right to be modest and a duty to be vain”